De Amerikaanse auteur William Rivers Pitt schrijft in Truthout over De Vijand: 'The enemy is never in Saudi Arabia, though that nation is the very birthing bed of international terrorism. The enemy is never in Israel, though that nation's far-right leadership has been a good deal of the impetus behind the Bush administration's calamitous push into Iraq. The enemy is never in China, even when they smack our planes out of the sky, because they own a substantial portion of our debt. The enemy is never in Pakistan, though that nation's fundamentalist wing allies itself with the Taliban, and though they actually do possess nuclear weapons. The enemy is occasionally mentioned as being in North Korea, but not often, because we want no part of that fight. For a time, the enemy was in the United Arab Emirates. Two of the hijackers of the September 11 aircraft were citizens of the United Arab Emirates, and the funding behind those attacks was wired through the UAE's banking system. Republican and Democratic Senators believe the UAE has been used as a conduit for the proliferation of nuclear technology. That was then, however. A company named Dubai Ports World intends to spend $6.8 billion to gain control of the management of shipping ports in New York and New Jersey, as well as in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami. Dubai Ports World is foreign-owned, but is backed financially by the government of the United Arab Emirates. In other words, a nation suspected of being a significant player in the September 11 attacks is being allowed to take control of our borders. For the record, US ports handle an estimated two billion tons of cargo annually, with only 5% of that cargo undergoing inspection. The deal has already been granted regulatory clearance by the White House. We hear a great deal about enemies, both real and contrived. Let us ponder, for a moment, the existence of another enemy so insidious that it operates fully in daylight but beyond control. This enemy seeks to destroy the rule of constitutional law in the United States. This enemy seeks to destroy the seed-corn defense against tyranny in this nation, the separation of powers. This enemy gathers more and more power to itself to achieve these goals, and uses fear and division to do so. This enemy will lie with impunity, stonewall endlessly and ruin anyone who might disrupt its plans.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021706A.shtml

Terwijl de discussie in Nederland over de spotprenten op een provincials niveu blijft doorsudderen met al dat gezever over vrijheid van meningsuiting en de veel geprezen Westerse normen en waarden, kan men in de buitenlandse kwaliteitskranten interessante beschouwingen vinden. De Britse Guardian: 'Is the argument over the Danish cartoons really reducible to a matter of free speech? Even if we believe that free speech is a fundamental value, that does not give us carte blanche to say what we like in any context, regardless of consequence or effect. Respect for others, especially in an increasingly interdependent world, is a value of at least equal importance.Europe has never had to worry too much about context or effect because for around 200 years it dominated and colonised most of the world. Such was Europe's omnipotence that it never needed to take into account the sensibilities, beliefs and attitudes of those that it colonised, however sacred and sensitive they might have been. On the contrary, European countries imposed their rulers, religion, beliefs, language, racial hierarchy and customs on those to whom they were entirely alien. There is a profound hypocrisy - and deep historical ignorance - when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world. With one crucial difference, of course: the white minorities ruled the roost, whereas Europe's new ethnic minorities are marginalised, excluded and castigated, as recent events have shown.But it is no longer possible for Europe to ignore the sensibilities of peoples with very different values, cultures and religions. First, western Europe now has sizeable minorities whose origins are very different from the host population and who are connected with their former homelands in diverse ways. If European societies want to live in some kind of domestic peace and harmony - rather than in a state of Balkanisation and repression - then they must find ways of integrating these minorities on rather more equal terms than, for the most part, they have so far achieved. That must mean, among other things, respect for their values. Second, it is patently clear that, globally speaking, Europe matters far less than it used to - and in the future will count for less and less. We must not only learn to share our homelands with people from very different roots, we must also learn to share the world with diverse peoples in a very different kind of way from what has been the European practice.' Lees verder:http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1711874,00.html Of: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11960.htm

Het ministerie van De Waarheid heeft zojuist bekend gemaakt dat: 'WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.' Orwell schrijft in '1984': 'Op de lange duur was een hierarchische maatschappij alleen mogelijk op een basis van armoede en onwetendheid... De vraag was, hoe de wielen van de industrie draaiende te houden zonder de feitelijke rijkdom van de wereld te vermeerderen. Er moesten goederen geproduceerd worden, maar zij moesten niet worden gedistribueerd. En in de praktijk was de enige manier om dit te bereiken een voortdurende oorlog. De wezenlijke oorlogsdaad is vernietiging, niet noodzakelijkerwijs van menselijke levens, maar van de voortbrengselen van menselijke arbeid. Oorlog is een methode tot het verbrijzelen, of het in de lucht laten vliegen, of tot het verzinken in de diepten der zee van materialen, die anders gebruikt zouden kunnen worden om de massa's te veel gemak te verschaffen en daardoor op de lange duur te intelligent te maken... De oorlog wordt door iedere heersende groep gevoerd tegen de eigen onderdanen en het doel van de oorlog is niet gebiedsveroveringen te maken of te voorkomen, maar om de structuur van de samenleving in stand te houden. Het woord "oorlog" zelf is derhalve misleidend geworden. Het zou waarschijnlijk juist zijn om te zeggen, dat de oorlog, door constant te worden, heeft opgehouden te bestaan.' En ondertussen zijn wij onderdeel van de genormaliseerde oorlog geworden, want de genormaliseerde oorlog is overal. Het wachten is op het moment tot alles tot een geweldige ontploffing komt. De Amerikaanse journalist Chris Floyd schrijft in de Moscow Times: 'The kindling has been piled high, stuffed with tinder and doused with gasoline. The match has been lit. All it will take is the slightest flick of the wrist to set off the conflagration. We are now living in the interval, the few heartbeats left before the great flame ignites.The heap of kindling has been a long time building, but in recent weeks, the work has intensified to a fever pitch. With relentless urgency, the American people are being habituated to the prospect of several interrelated upheavals -- new war, new terror attacks -- and the predetermined result of these events: the final, open establishment of presidential tyranny, a militarized "commander state" where executive power is beyond the law, and endless war endlessly prolongs the "emergency measures" of the authoritarian regime…a militarist state must have war: to justify its draconian rule (and those $550 billion "defense" budgets), to find new fields for dominion and swag, and to seal with blood its illegitimate compact with the people, seeking to make them complicit in its crimes, which are committed in their name, for their "security." Fortunately for the militarists, Bush has promised war in abundance. Just this month, the Pentagon released its new strategy, heralding the newly dubbed "Long War" against terrorism, where U.S. forces will be deployed, openly and covertly, "in dozens of countries simultaneously" for decades to come. The plan is designed to "ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global security" -- except, of course, for the dictatorial foreign power emanating from the Potomac.This is the constitution of the new commander state: the eternal "emergency," fomenting endless bloodshed, strife, atrocity -- and reprisals, the terrorist blowback that is the essential lubricant for the war machine. And a new terror strike on the "homeland" is inevitable. The ground for this attack has been carefully prepared -- whether wittingly or unwittingly is irrelevant now. For whatever the Bush faction's intentions, their actual policies have demonstrably and indisputably stoked the fires of Islamic extremism to new heights of virulence. Meanwhile, their manifest incompetence and callous disregard for the well-being of ordinary Americans -- vividly displayed in the deadly bungling of the Katrina disaster and its corruption-riddled aftermath -- have left American soil virtually undefended against any genuinely serious terrorist attack, i.e. one not carried out by half-wits telegraphing their punches over tapped phones.' Lees verder: http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/166097/Orwell: 'When war is continuous, there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. But though it is unreal, it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs.'

De Irakese stad Najaf nadat onze Amerikaanse bondgenoot er was binnengedrongen. Is dit nu een Westerse overwinning? Is dit het gezicht van de democratie en mensenrechten? Nolan K. Anderson is a retired engineer and a veteran of Korea who was once a “conservative” until he found there was nothing left to conserve. (He may be reached at nkanders@bellsouth.net ). Hij schrijft in Information Clearing House: 'How Will We Know When We Have Lost, America?What is it that tells us we have lost a battle or a war? Is victory marked by a nation’s leader dressing the part of a warrior and declaring, “Mission Accomplished”. Is “loss” defined by politicians officially reporting victory at least three times? Is a “loss” the “beautiful people” hanging onto the “last helicopter out”? Is it a “loss” when the most powerful army the world has ever seen can’t travel its own six-mile road from its Baghdad airport to its administrative headquarters? Is defeat an Army’s friendly fire killing its own military hero and then lying for months on end about the circumstances of the event? Does the need to manufacture a heroine like Jessica Lynch mark the end of a blatantly unjust cause and therefore defeat? How does a commander-in-chief wage a war when one of his senior generals says, "I don't know if I have the moral authority to send troops into combat anymore. I'm no longer sure I can look (a soldier or a Marine) in the eye and say: ‘This is something worth dying for.’' Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11963.htm

Abu Ghraib is geen uitwas, Guantanamo is geen uitwas. Onze bondgenoot die wij steunen in de zogeheten 'war on terror' martelt al decennialang tegenstanders van de Westerse versie van de democratie en de vrije markt. Democracy Now interviewde een Amerikaanse deskundige op dit gebied: 'Professor McCoy Exposes the History of CIA InterrogationFrom the Cold War to the War on TerrorProfessor Alfred McCoy talks about his book “A Question of Torture”, a startling expose of the CIA development of psychological torture from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib. CIA mercenaries attempted to assassinate McCoy more than 30 years ago. We now take a look at what lies behind the shocking images of torture at Abu Ghraib by turning to the history of the CIA and torture techniques. The International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International and other human rights groups say the recently released images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib show a clear violation of international humanitarian law. The U.S. made a pledge against torture when Congress ratified the UN Convention Against Torture in 1994 - but it was ratified with reservations that exempted the CIA’s psychological torture method. So what were the results? Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror” and also “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.”' Lees en luister: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/17/1522228&mode=thread&tid=25 Of:http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11965.htm Voor meer beelden van Abu Ghraib:http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11923.htm De Australische documentaire over de Abu Ghraib folteringen kunt u hier zien: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11944.htm Over de School of the America's waar buitenlandse militairen door Amerikaanse militairen opgeleid worden in het martelen: http://www.soaw.org/new/

De Guardian bericht over onze bondgenoot in de 'war on terror': 'Judge's Anger at US Torture. Stinging comments come as America dismisses UN report on Guantánamo. A high court judge yesterday delivered a stinging attack on America, saying its idea of what constituted torture was out of step with that of "most civilized nations". The criticism, directed at the Bush administration's approach to human rights, was made by Mr Justice Collins during a hearing over the refusal by ministers to request the release of three British residents held at Guantánamo Bay. The judge said: "America's idea of what is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations." He made his comments, he said, after learning of the UN report that said Guantánamo should be shut down without delay because torture was still being carried out there.' Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1711901,00.html Desondanks werken Nederlandse militairen samen met Amerikanen in Afghanistan. Dankzij het Nederlandse parlement. Hoe lang nog?

vrijdag 17 februari 2006

Het feit dat de Bush-regering een loopje neemt met de parlementaire democratie stuit op steeds meer verzet van de commerciele Amerikaanse massamedia, die de belangen van de grote concerns behartigen. Na jarenlang als spreekbuis van de Bush-regering te hebben gefunctioneerd is nu ook voor de New York Times de maat vol. In een commentaar schrijft de redactie: 'Doing the President's Dirty Work. Is there any aspect of President Bush's miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up? For more than a year, Mr. Roberts has been dragging out an investigation into why Mr. Bush presented old, dubious and just plain wrong intelligence on Iraq as solid new proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda. It was supposed to start after the 2004 election, but Mr. Roberts was letting it die of neglect until the Democrats protested by forcing the Senate into an unusual closed session last November. Now Mr. Roberts is trying to stop an investigation into Mr. Bush's decision to allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without getting the warrants required by a 27-year-old federal law enacted to stop that sort of abuse. Mr. Roberts had promised to hold a committee vote yesterday on whether to investigate. But he canceled the vote, and then made two astonishing announcements. He said he was working with the White House on amending the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to permit warrantless spying. And then he suggested that such a change would eliminate the need for an inquiry. Stifling his own committee without even bothering to get the facts is outrageous.' Lees verder:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/opinion/17fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021706M.shtml

Zo ongeveer ziet de werkelijkheid er langzamerhand uit voor degenen die maf genoeg zijn om alle propaganda voor zoete koek te slikken. Alles is mogelijk geworden. Paul Craig Roberts schrijf in CounterPunch: '"Even Jobs at McDonald's Aren't Safe."Their Own Economic Reality.One might think that the Iraq experience would restore sober judgement to policymakers. Alas, neocon reality has spread everywhere. It has infected the media and the new Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, who just gave Congress an upbeat report on the economy. The robust economy, he declared, could soon lead to inflation and higher interest rates. Consumers deeper in debt and fresh from their first negative savings rate since the Great Depression show high consumer confidence. It is as if the entire country is on an acid trip or a cocaine trip or whatever it is that lets people create realities for themselves that bear no relation to real reality. How can the upbeat views be reconciled with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ payroll jobs data, the extraordinary red ink, and exploding trade deficit? Perhaps the answer is that every economic development, no matter how detrimental, is spun as if it were good news. For example, the worsening US trade deficit is spun as evidence of the fast growth of the US economy: the economy is growing so fast it can’t meet its needs and must rely on imports. Declining household income is spun as an inflation fighter that keeps mortgage interest rates low. Federal budget deficits are spun as letting taxpayers keep and spend more of their own money. Massive layoffs are spun as evidence that change is so rapid that the work force must constantly upgrade skills and re-educate itself. The denial of economic reality has become an art form. Except for Lou Dobbs, no accurate economic reporting is available in the “mainstream media.” Occasionally, real information escapes the spin machine. The National Association of Manufacturers, one of outsourcing’s greatest boosters, has just released a report, “US Manufacturing Innovation at Risk,” by economists Joel Popkin and Kathryn Kobe. The economists find that US industry’s investment in research and development is not languishing after all. It just appears to be languishing, because it is rapidly being shifted overseas: “Funds provided for foreign- performed R&D have grown by almost 73 percent between 1999 and 2003, with a 36 percent increase in the number of firms funding foreign R&D.”' Lees verder: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02162006.html Over mafkezen gesproken: 'Benedict Carey reports in the NY Times: ”All told, almost half of American presidents from 1789 to 1974 had suffered from a mental illness at some point in life, according to a recent analysis of biographical sources by psychiatrists at Duke University Medical Center. And more than half of those presidents, the study found, struggled with their symptoms — most often depression — while in office. "What is hopeful about this is that it is evidence that people can suffer from depression or other mental problems and still function at a presidential level, if not at their best," said Dr. Jonathan Davidson, who, along with Dr. Kathryn Connor and Dr. Marvin Swartz, cataloged symptoms from presidential papers and biographies, and identified those disabling enough to qualify as disorders. They reported their findings in the current issue of The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. “The authors acknowledge the hazards and uncertainties of diagnosing from such a distance. But the lifetime rate of mental illness they found in these 37 presidents is identical to that found in some surveys of the American population.' Ah wel, ondertussen is men op Highway 61 druk doende met de voorbereidingen voor de Derde Wereldoorlog.

Nog meer wetenschappelijke feiten die bewust genegeeerd worden, terwijl onze politici ons aanvuren nog harder te werken voor economische groei. Opnieuw de Independent: 'Global warming '30 times quicker than it used to be.' Greenhouse gases are being released into the atmosphere 30 times faster than the time when the Earth experienced a previous episode of global warming. A study comparing the rate at which carbon dioxide and methane are being emitted now, compared to 55 million years ago when global warming also occurred, has found dramatic differences in the speed of release. James Zachos, professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the speed of the present build-up of greenhouse gases is far greater than during the global warming after the demise of the dinosaurs. "The emissions that caused this past episode of global warming probably lasted 10,000 years," Professor Zachos told the American Association for the Advancement of Science at a meeting in St Louis. "By burning fossil fuels, we are likely to emit the same amount over the next three centuries."' Lees verder: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article345928.ece

De Bush-regering probeerde vergeefs een NASA-wetenschapper de mond te snoeren over nieuwe belangrijke onderzoeksresultaten over de klimaatverandering. Het is groot nieuws niet in de Nederlandse media, maar wel in de buitenlandse. In de Independent bericht hij: 'Climate change: On the edge. Greenland ice cap breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago, says scientist Bush tried to gag. A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared - twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago. The implications for rising sea levels - and climate change - could be dramatic.Yet, a few weeks ago, when I - a Nasa climate scientist - tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team - staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration - tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa's mission is to understand and protect the planet. This new satellite data is a remarkable advance. We are seeing for the first time the detailed behaviour of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet. They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year. It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance. Hundreds of cubic kilometres sounds like a lot of ice. But this is just the beginning. Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid. The issue is how close we are getting to that tipping point. The summer of 2005 broke all records for melting in Greenland. So we may be on the edge.' Lees verder: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article345926.ece En: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021601292.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

Irakese politie-eenheden van het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, die volgens soennieten opereren als doodseskaders. De BBC bericht: 'Iraq has launched an investigation into claims by the US military that an Iraqi interior ministry "death squad" has been targeting Sunni Arab Iraqis. The probe comes after a US general revealed the arrest of 22 policemen allegedly on a mission to kill a Sunni. "We have found one of the death squads. They are part of the police force," US Maj Gen Joseph Peterson said. Sunnis have long accused Iraqi forces of operating death squads - but the claims have never been substantiated… Hundreds of Sunni Arab Iraqis have been found dead since the 2003 war in what appear to have been extra-judicial killings.On Wednesday, the bodies of four unidentified men were found in Baghdad's Shia district of Shula. They had been handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head.' Lees verder: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4719252.stm Of:http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021606A.shtml

donderdag 16 februari 2006

Op de bovenste foto ziet u de cel van een vermoorde Irakese gevangene nadat CIA-agenten klaar waren met hun ondervragingen. Daaronder ziet u een doodgemartelde Irakese verdachte. Beide foto's zijn gemaakt in Abu Ghraib door onze bondgenoten in de strijd tegen 'the war on terror.' Van alle Nederlandse ochtendbladen besteedt in hun interneteditie alleen de Telegraaf aandacht aan de nieuwe foto's van de Amerikaanse folteringen. Voor de andere Nederlandse ochtendbladen is het kennelijk allemaal te verwaarlozen ouwe koek. Trouw is nog steeds zo bezig met het belang van de vrijheid van meningsuiting dat het aan feiten niet meer toekomt. Daarentegen brengen de buitenlandse media het nieuws wel prominent. De Britse kwaliteitskrant de Independent bericht: 'New pictures reveal extent of abuse at Abu Ghraib jail. Damning new photographs and videos purporting to show the abuse and even murder of Iraqi prisoners at the infamous Abu Ghraib jail have been broadcast on Australian television and picked up by Arab channels. The images are likely to trigger outrage because they show more graphically than before the scenes of humiliation which took place at Abu Ghraib in late 2003. Iraqis will be watching them on television days after seeing film of British soldiers beating up young men in the city of Amarah in southern Iraq and amid continuing Muslim fury over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed. The 60 pictures appearing to show a man with a cut throat, another suffering from severe head injuries and a naked man hanging upside down from a bed were broadcast last night on the Dateline programme by the state-owned Special Broadcasting Service. SBS said in a statement: "The extent of the abuse shown in the photos suggests that the torture and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib in 2004 is much worse than is currently understood."' Lees verder:http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article345692.ece Op de site van de Amerikaanse journalist Dahr Jamail kunt u de uitzending van de Australische omroep SBS zien die als eerste de nieuwe schokkende beelden naar buiten brachten. Zie: http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-tiny.mp4

Common Dreams bericht: 'International Study on Arctic Climate Change Produces Startling Findings. An extensive international study on the effects of climate change in the Arctic has reached some startling conclusions on issues ranging from how fast polar ice is melting to the impact on Inuit communities. About 120 scientists from 11 countries involved in the Canadian-led research project, which started in 2002, are meeting in Winnipeg this week to present and discuss their findings. One of the most surprising for David Barber, a sea ice specialist at the University of Manitoba, was the fact polar ice is melting at a rate of about 74,000 square kilometres each year - an area about the size of Lake Superior - and has been for the last 30 years. "This is a very significant result, and it's not some sort of trend that's going to shift back the other way," Barber said Tuesday. Barber added there is increasing concern in the scientific community that there are factors actually speeding up the melt, but he cautions it's too late to reverse the trend. "The time to act actually was a few decades ago," he said. "We're not going to be able to shift the economies of the planet to get off this fossil fuel addiction in a week, a year or a decade. But we have to start the process now to have some stability for future generations." Louis Fortier, a researcher with Universite Laval in Quebec City who led the project, agreed the focus in Canada and internationally needs to be on coping with the reality of global warming and minimizing the damage. "If we wanted to really change things to avoid the bulk of the impacts of climate change, we would have to totally change our way of life tomorrow," said Fortier.' Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0215-07.htm

woensdag 15 februari 2006

Volgens de propaganda gaat het bergopwaarts met Afghanistan. Volgens de dagelijkse werkelijkheid gaat het bergafwaarts met Afghanistan. De Christian Science Monitor bericht: 'Sixty percent of the respondents had no electricity in their homes. Seven out of 10 Afghan adults have had no more than an elementary education, and half have household incomes of just $500 a year. It doesn't take much of a spark to change public opinion when the fundamental aspects of life - food, shelter, jobs - are in such a precarious state. "What do people want? A clean and accountable government, food on the table, jobs," says Paul Fishstein, director of Afghan Rehabilitation and Evaluation Unit (AREU), a Kabul think tank. When they don't get even those basic amenities, he says, their faith in government declines.For this reason, Afghan officials are concerned with some of the economic and security measures here:• Afghanistan's illegal drug economy (mainly opium and heroin) accounted for an estimated $2.7 billion in 2005, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. That's more than 50 percent of the size of the legal gross domestic product.• Afghan officials estimate that 400,000 farming families benefit from opium poppy cultivation. Many of these participated in alternative livelihood programs last year, but expressed anger at the $2 a day short-term projects like clearing irrigation ditches that offer little stability.• Afghan officials estimate that there are 50,000 heroin addicts in Afghanistan.• Between 250,000 and 400,000 civil servants are working within the Afghan government, according to a study by the AREU. (The 150,000 margin of error speaks volumes about government disarray). Afghan officials estimate that perhaps 100,000 of these are directly benefiting (through transportation fees, profits, or bribes) from the drug trade.• Afghanistan's colleges and universities graduate 38,000 college students each year, and the revitalized primary and secondary school systems in the countryside will see those numbers rise. But nearly 70 percent of the population of Kabul is jobless, and there is almost no job creation to absorb these college graduates.• Aid groups are working in almost every district, but Afghan officials say that there are 21 provinces (out of 34) where it is unsafe to travel at night, either because of insurgency or crime.Perhaps most telling is the US State Department's "warden message" in January warning US citizens not to travel to Afghanistan. "The ability of Afghan authorities to maintain order and ensure the security of citizens and visitors is limited.... Travel in all areas of Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, is unsafe due to military operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry among political and tribal groups, and the possibility of terrorist attacks, including attacks using vehicular or other Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and kidnapping."These problems aren't isolated from each other, say some Afghan officials and foreign observers, who note that the the drug trade is encouraging corruption, corruption is creating public distrust, and public distrust is leading to at least tacit support for insurgency and criminality.' Lees verder: http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/0214/p01s02-wosc.html

Nederlanders die zich zo hebben opgewonden over de reactie in de islamitische wereld op de spotprenten doen er goed aan de nieuwe gruwelijke beelden van Abu Ghraib eens goed te bestuderen. "The extent of the abuse shown in the photos suggests that the torture and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib in 2004 is much worse than is currently understood," aldus de presentator van de Australische televisiezender SBS die de beelden zojuist heeft uitgezonden. CNN bericht: 'Australian TV shows more Abu Ghraib images. Program airs newly released videos, photos of apparent abuse. More grisly photographs and videos have emerged that appear to show U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The Australian television network SBS program "Dateline," broadcast the pictures and videos Wednesday night. The images reportedly date from 2003 -- the same time that previously released photographs of prisoner abuse were taken. "We hope that the release of these photographs will bring about further pressure to hold high-ranking officials accountable for what we now know to have been systemic and widespread abuse occurring throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay," said American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Amrit Singh on "Dateline," adding that she had not seen the images. The Pentagon had no immediate comment about the release of the photographs… The latest photographs appear to show more abuse, including cases of torture and sexual humiliation -- including forcing them to masturbate for the camera. In September, after the ACLU won access to those set of pictures via a Freedom of Information Act request, the U.S. government appealed the decision, tying up their release. "Dateline" Executive Producer Mike Carey said on the network's Web site that his program "obtained a file of hundreds of pictures." He did not detail how or from whom those pictures, some of which were broadcast on Wednesday's program, were obtained. Some images too graphic to air. The program did not show all of the pictures. It deemed some of them -- with prisoners apparently performing sexually humiliating acts -- too graphic for air, he said. Included among the images broadcast were pictures of naked men who appeared to have suffered physical trauma, one of whom the report said had 11 nonlethal bullet wounds in his buttocks. Other pictures show dead bodies, one of which the program said a U.S. Army report identified as one of three men killed during a riot over living conditions at the prison. According to the TV report, two Abu Ghraib soldiers said that guards were ordered to use lethal rounds on prisoners when they ran out of rubber bullets trying to halt the riot. A video shows five men wearing hoods and masturbating for the camera, presumably under orders of their guards. One image depicts two women described by a guard to "Dateline" as prostitutes held at the prison for two days. In one picture, the breasts of one of the women are exposed. Another grisly image shows a corpse that appears to have had a section torn from its head while another one features a man whose arms are covered in purple bruises. Also broadcast was video that appears to show a prisoner -- handcuffed to a metal door -- repeatedly slamming his head full force against the door. Though the guards appear to have videotaped the incident from several vantage points, no one is seen intervening to stop the prisoner. The TV program obscured most of the prisoners' faces so they could not be identified.' Lees verder: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/15/abughraib.photos/ Ondertussen laat de BBC World Service beelden zien van een Irakese geestelijk gehandicapte man die in de gevangenis zijn hoofd tegen een stalen deur kapot slaat, tot groot plezier van zijn Amerikaanse bewakers. De rest van de beelden durft de BBC niet uit te zenden omdat ze te schokkend zijn. Zie: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4715540.stm De Westerse beschaving, de rechtstaat, het internationaal recht, de Conventies van Geneve, de mensenrechten, ze hebben nooit een rol gespeeld in de naoorlogse opbouw van het Amerikaanse rijk. De Amerikanen hebben zelfs de 'School of the America's' opgericht waar buitenlandse militairen getraind werden in de nieuwste foltertechnieken. Zie: http://www.soaw.org/new/ Alleen hele onnozele Kamerleden geloven dat de Amerikanen door Nederlandse militairen gearresteerde verdachten uiteindelijk niet zullen martelen. Zie ook de Australische Omroep SBS die de beelden uitzond: http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=127322&region=6# Of via: http://smh.com.au/news/world/the-photos-america-doesnt-want-seen/2006/02/14/1139890737099.html

De pro-israel extremisten in de regering Bush en de Eretz Israel regering in Jeruzalem zijn van plan de Palestijnse bevolking te terroriseren voor hun democratische steun aan Hamas. De New York Times bericht: 'U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster. The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats. The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement. The officials also argue that a close look at the election results shows that Hamas won a smaller mandate than previously understood.The officials and diplomats, who said this approach was being discussed at the highest levels of the State Department and the Israeli government, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021406J.shtml

Terwijl Nederlandse militairen een misdadig beleid ondersteunen verzoekt de Verenigde Naties met klem ermee op te houden. De Independent bericht: 'Close Guantanamo now, UN tells White House. A UN report is expected to call on the United States to close its Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba without delay and transfer the near-500 supposed "enemy combatants" held there to American soil to guarantee them access to fair trials. A leaked draft of the document, written over 18 months by five independent experts in international law appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights, says the inmates at Guantanamo are being denied their rights to mental and physical health to a degree that sometimes amounts to torture.The draft, reported by the Los Angeles Times, raises particular concern about the treatment of inmates on hunger strike, which involves forcible insertion of feeding tubes through the nasal cavity and into the stomach, excessive violence during transportation and interrogation techniques that "must be assessed as amounting to torture".' Lees verder:http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article345252.ece Of: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0214-03.htm

Robert Scheer schrijft over he totale failliet van de Irak oorlog en het dreigende gevaar van een confrontatie met Iran. 'Confronted by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos with the news that fiery Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi militia has twice engaged in fierce armed conflict with U.S. troops since the 2003 invasion, was the kingmaker in the selection of Iraq’s next prime minister, Rice replied sanguinely, “Iraq is a complex place, there’s a lot of voices.”But as Stephanopoulos pointed out, the voice in question has been raised to offer military support to Rice’s nemeses, Syria and Iran. In Syria, al-Sadr pledged to fight in “the defense against our common enemies,” the United States, Britain and Israel. Visiting Tehran, he offered the support of Iraqi fighters in the event of an attack by the United States over the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, stating unequivocally, “If neighboring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the targets of attacks, we will support them.” There is no way to soft-pedal it: The astounding rise of an anti-American firebrand like al-Sadr is an indicator of how wide and complete a political defeat pro-Western forces have suffered in Iraq. Written off by most Western observers as nothing more than a rabble-rousing irritant in the first months of the U.S. occupation, al-Sadr has more than survived his confrontation with the world’s only superpower: His faction was the big winner in the recent elections, now entrenched as the largest single force in the dominant Shiite coalition. So it is that the political support of a young radical, who not so long ago was considered a wanted outlaw by the occupiers, has now determined the selection of Iraq’s new leader.' Lees verder: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060215_condoleezza_iraq_al_sadr/ Desalniettemin blijven de dappere Nederlandse volksvertegenwoordigers pal achter het Amerikaanse beleid in het Midden Oosten staan door nog meer militairen naar oorlogsgebied te sturen. Tot er hier terroristische aanslagen gaan plaatsvinden fo daar teveel soldaten sneuvelen en dan is het met die dapperheid gauw afgelopen.

De Sunday Times bericht: 'CIA chief sacked for opposing torture.The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding”, intelligence sources have claimed. Robert Grenier, head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, was relieved of his post after a year in the job. One intelligence official said he was “not quite as aggressive as he might have been” in pursuing Al-Qaeda leaders and networks.Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counter-terrorism at the agency, said: “It is not that Grenier wasn’t aggressive enough, it is that he wasn’t ‘with the programme’. He expressed misgivings about the secret prisons in Europe and the rendition of terrorists.” Grenier also opposed “excessive” interrogation, such as strapping suspects to boards and dunking them in water, according to Cannistraro. Porter Goss, who was appointed head of the CIA in August 2004 with a mission to “clean house”, has been angered by a series of leaks from CIA insiders, including revelations about “black sites” in Europe where top Al-Qaeda detainees were said to have been held.' Lees verder:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036182,00.html En:http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0602&L=justwatch-l&D=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=41495Nederlandse militairen in Afghanistan werken direct of indirect samen met de CIA. We kunnen straks niet zeggen dat we van niets hebben geweten.

Dit is het gezicht van de oorlog. Dit vertellen de handelaren van de angst er niet bij, daarover zwijgen propagandisten als Hirsi Ali wanneer ze ophitsen om een oorlog te beginnen, die niet zij maar anderen voor haar moeten voeren. Natuurlijk wordt de verschrikking geheel omkleedt met mooie nobele woorden. Maar hoe hol die woorden zijn, blijkt al snel op het slagveld, maar ook daarna, als men eenmaal thuis geconfronteerd wordt met de herinnering aan de verschrikking. Dat is de ware power of nightmares. Zo schrijft de Amerikaanse marinier Charlie Anderson: 'My friend Doug Barber died on Martin Luther King Day. I hadn't known him long, but we had a lot in common. We both lived in the south, were both veterans of the Iraq War, both felt betrayed by our government for sending us to a war without purpose. Both of our marriages had been destroyed in the aftermath of the war, and finally, we were both struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Doug and I both fought during the invasion of Iraq. He was an army National Guardsman and I was attached to the Marines. I don’t really know how Doug’s PTSD first manifested, but I do know he had a different battle than I did. I had been back less than a month when I found myself diving for cover when the neighbors launched bottle rockets. Soon I was unable to stand any noise that sounded like gunfire. I felt profound guilt that I had come home alive when others I knew did not, and I was plagued by nightmares of the horrors I had experienced far from home… Doug and I are not alone. 30% of Iraq veterans have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The divorce rate among Iraq Veterans is very high. Homelessness, unemployment and drug abuse are also on the rise. As Doug put it in an article written shortly before he took his own life, “All is not okay ... for those of us who return home alive and supposedly well. What looks like normalcy and readjustment is only an illusion to be revealed by time and torment. Some soldiers ... will live with permanent scars from horrific events that no one other than those who served will ever understand.”' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021106X.shtml

Overal zijn de - in de woorden van Geert Mak - 'handelaren van de angst' druk bezig. Zowel in de Nederlandse journalistiek als de buitenlandse politiek. De Independent bericht: 'The politics of fear (or how Tony Blair misled us over the war on terror).HOW TONY BLAIR MISLED THE NATION.On 28 February 2005, with the Prevention of Terrorism Bill being discussed in Parliament, Tony Blair made the following comment to listeners to Women's Hour: "What they [the security services] say is that you have got to give us powers in between mere surveillance of these people - there are several hundred of them in this country who we believe are engaged in plotting or trying to commit terrorist acts - you have got to give us power in between just surveying them and being sure enough to prosecute them beyond reasonable doubt. There are people out there who are determined to destroy our way of life and there is no point in us being naïve about it. " Anyone listening to the Prime Minister's remarks must have felt that, within days of the Prevention of Terrorism Act being passed, the "several hundred" individuals plotting to wreak devastation through Britain would have been under lock and key. And yet that is not the case at all. Nearly a year has gone by and yet no more than 17 individuals have been made subject to control orders. The Prime Minister's suggestion that the security services were demanding new powers in order to deal with a new category of terrorist suspect turns out to have been nonsense. His figure of " several hundred" terrorists plotting mayhem seems to have been plucked out of thin air.' Lees verder: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article345503.ece

Zoals bekend kan men een dubbeltje maar 1 keer uitgeven en als dat geld naar de oorlog gaat, levert het ook nog eens niets op, behalve dan voor de aandeelhouders van de oorlogsindustrie. Het onafhankelijke Amerikaanse 'New Standard' bericht: 'White House Looks to Cut EPA Library Funds. Continuing a four-year trend, the White House budget proposal for 2007 would cut 80 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s library budget, drastically reducing the amount of information available to government scientists and the public. The library cuts come on top of funding reductions for several other EPA programs that environmental groups maintain are vital to the global ecosystem and the national interest. The $7.3 billion proposed EPA budget would trim $2 million from the $2.5 million EPA library fund, which, according to the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), may cause many regional libraries to shut down. The pared-down library budget would de-fund the agency’s electronic catalog and pull $500,000 from the EPA headquarters library coordination network, according to EPA documents released by PEER. The cuts come even as the president has called on the EPA to become more aggressive in researching and adopting cutting-edge technology, PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch noted. Ruch asked, "How are EPA scientists supposed to engage in cutting-edge research when they cannot find what the Agency has already done?" PEER is an advocacy organization representing local state and federal resource professionals "Access to information is one of the best tools we have for protecting the environment," Ruch said. "Closing the Environmental Protection Agency libraries actually threatens to subtract from the sum total of human knowledge."' Lees verder:http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2803

En terwijl op dit moment de beelden van de martelende Britse soldaten de hele islamitische wereld doorgaan, staat bondgenoot de Verenigde Staten te popelen om Iran te bombarderen. De Sunday Telegraph bericht: 'US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear. Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb. Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt. They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme."This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months." The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000 lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.' Lees verder:http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/12/wiran12.xmlEn omdat de Nederlandse journalistiek deze ontwikkelingen niet structureel volgt en niet in een breder kader plaatst is men straks verrast en zelfs verbijsterd als het tot een woede-explosie in de islamitische wereld komt. Intussen blijft die woede als een veenbrand ondergronds doorgaan.

De pas begonnen Amerikaanse onafhankelijke, niet commerciele NewStandard bericht: 'Report: Inside or Out, Gitmo Detainees Face Hardship, Detention. A leading international human rights organization has issued a report on the fate of people who have been detained at the United States military camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. According to the report, released yesterday by Amnesty International, those discharged from the prison are facing an increasingly difficult time assimilating back into society. Many of those returned to their home countries from US detention are subject to harassment from authorities, and others are stigmatized as suspected terrorists. The report details the cases of five men formerly interred at Guantánamo, one of whose whereabouts is still unknown. All the men reported being followed by law enforcement agents after returning to their home countries, and several were subsequently arrested on dubious criminal charges, according to accounts compiled by Amnesty. For instance, according to Amnesty, Wisam ’Abd Al-Rahman Ahmed, a Jordanian national returned to his home country in 2004 after the US released him, is currently being held incommunicado at an unknown location. He claimed to have been first apprehended in Iran in March 2002. In statements to the media shortly after his release from the US-run prison camp, Al-Rahman Ahmed said he had been mentally, physically and sexually abused by US authorities at the military base in Bagram, Afghanistan for over fourteen months prior to being transferred to Guantánamo Bay.' Lees verder: http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2781En de site van Amnesty International: http://web.amnesty.org/pages/stoptorture-030206-editorial-eng